I have recently bought myself a simple android tablet to find out how I can utilize it in being more productive. Here are some of the things I used it for, and I'm very interested in feedback and similar or different experiences, as I plan to buy a 'real' tablet soon:

In general I see a tablet as an information consumer device, creating information on it is not (at the moment) a use case that I see

I use the tablet to:
- Browse the internet, reading blogs, this site, news sites etc
- Read emails, almost only to read the content and delete or archive read emails. Responding is done on my regular computer, however it is sometimes difficult as I forget to resond
- Handle my GTD Lists with Remember The Milk
- View webcasts and videos

Out of curiosity, what is not 'real' about your android tablet?
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eflatMar 4 '12 at 21:49

As you mentioned, a tablet is a consumer device, a laptop(notebook,computer) is a producer device. The simple fact that you recognize this means that a tablet cannot make you a more effective producer more than a laptop will. Your best bet is to keep a good To-Do list on the tablet and write to it as you consume and have it sync with your producing device
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RaystafarianMar 5 '12 at 18:28

Regarding the 'real', it is quite a cheap device I bought in China, thus the battery and the wlan is not that good.
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Martijn DamenMar 6 '12 at 9:15

2 Answers
2

I know that tablets are a huge deal but I think that they are a intermediary device between mobile smart phones and the future. I am thinking something like the Galaxy Note is more on tune with is better to use. The tablet is too big to carry around and just whip out, but like you are experiencing, it is not easy to produce work on. If you are able, you may find something like the Galaxy Note to be a better option as it is in between a phone and a tablet. You may also find that you would like the Asus Transformer Prime or Asus Padphone that is coming out this year. The Transformer Prime is an Android tablet that locks into a keyboard and folds up like a laptop so you get the best of both worlds. The Padphone is a mobile phone that slides into a tablet so you can have a bigger screen and longer battery life. The tablet will then connect to the keyboard and fold up like a laptop. Essentially its all three devices in one so all of your information is being stored on the mobile phone and you can just take it and go when you don't want the other pieces.

As far as applications to help keep you organized no matter what Android device you are using, I would recommend Any.do, Mint, springpad, DropBox, Evernote, Diigo, and Recordroid. Any.do is a simple to do list with a sleek interface. Mint is a free financial tool that works really great. Springpad is a note taking device that uses things like a barcode scanner, camera and voice to take notes. Dropbox allows you to sync files from your desktop to all of your devices. Many have already talked about Evernote. Diigo is a social bookmarking tool on steroids. It allows for notes as well as bookmarks and has a read-it-later function. Recordroid is a voice recording app that allows you to record voice notes as long as you want.

I use my Kindle Fire about the same way you use your tablet. A few details may differ.

I read email and move to a @Reply folder if a reply is needed, to catch up with later on a machine with a real keyboard.

I use Evernote, and do a lot of offline reading using their "Clearly" browser plugin and add-on. (It takes the meat of a web site/blog posting and turns it into nicely formatted text, and then puts it where I can read it later.)

I read RSS feeds, and can easily send references off to either Remember The Milk or Evernote via their email interfaces for future work.

I do some capture with it, primarily into Evernote, if I don't have something better suited close at hand. More capture happens with my iPod Touch, because a lot of times a quick audio note or photo is all I need to collect for later processing.

The tablet is a bit nicer interface than the iPod touch for a lot of web consumption, simply because the size is a bit larger. But it is still small enough to carry almost everywhere pretty easily.